Overview

Gusto is the all-in-one HR platform that makes it easy to hire great people and take great care of them. The company was founded in 2012 by three Stanford graduates who set out to revolutionize payroll, and has since built an intuitive solution for paying, insuring, and supporting teams. Gusto’s people platform helps over 400,000 businesses and over 30,000 accountants take care of their teams, and Gusto has been named the #1 Payroll Software in the US by G2, a Leader in HR Management, Payroll and Benefits, and one of Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For, in 2025.

Gusto is the only payroll, HR, and benefits company with tools built specifically for small businesses. We started with payroll and quickly realized that benefits and HR were just as critical. Today we offer comprehensive payroll, health insurance, benefits, hiring tools, time tracking, and more, all in one place. Our customers come from all walks of life and so do we. We hire great people from a wide variety of backgrounds, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it makes our company stronger. If you share our values and our enthusiasm for small businesses, you will find a home at Gusto.

We are looking for an experienced Senior Performance Marketing Manager to own Gusto’s paid social marketing strategy and execution. You will lead paid social strategy across our core social channels (Meta, LinkedIn, Reddit, Quora, and TikTok), own multi-million dollar budgets, drive creative strategy and testing, and help define Gusto’s broader approach to AI-powered acquisition. This role sits within the Performance Marketing team and reports to the Sr. Director of Paid Acquisition.

About the team

The Performance Marketing team owns Gusto’s paid acquisition efforts across paid search, paid social, review sites, and other demand-driving channels, managing large-scale budgets that fuel our growth engine. As part of the team, you’ll collaborate with a group of curious, ambitious, and results-driven people who enjoy solving hard problems together, bringing deep channel expertise, creative thinking, and a growth mindset to our marketing strategy. The team has a broad impact across the business and is dedicated to driving measurable results, contributing directly to Gusto’s growth.

Here’s what you’ll do day-to-day

  • Own paid social strategy and execution across Meta, LinkedIn, Reddit, Quora, and TikTok, driving full-funnel campaigns from brand awareness through retargeting and conversion, with accountability to pipeline and revenue targets.
  • Manage significant, multi-million dollar budgets with rigor, including campaign pacing, forecasting, budget-vs-actuals analysis, and making the case for paid social investment in imperfect attribution environments.
  • Apply and help refine Gusto’s paid acquisition measurement framework, including attribution philosophy and budget allocation principles, in partnership with the broader marketing team. Collaborate with Engineering to launch new pixels and tracking, troubleshoot platform-side issues, and QA implementations, keeping measurement reliable as tracking needs evolve.
  • Lead creative strategy and testing at scale: briefing creative studios and agencies, structuring meaningful experiments, interpreting complex data sets to drive actionable insights, and building a clear learning roadmap. Align with the Brand and Influencer team to run the organic-to-paid feedback loop: turning proven organic and influencer content into paid scale, and feeding results back to sharpen what earns that investment next.
  • Use AI tools as a consistent, habitual part of your workflow: generating campaign briefs, developing copy variants, accelerating audience research, and building reusable systems that raise the bar for the whole team. Serve as the team’s go-to expert on paid social and AI-powered marketing workflows, documenting playbooks and best practices for the paid acquisition team.
  • Identify, test, and validate new digital media channels and formats beyond core paid social (such as Google Demand Generation campaigns and ChatGPT ads), running structured pilots, defining success criteria upfront, and making the call on scale vs. kill within existing budget guardrails.
  • Partner cross-functionally with Integrated Marketing, Product Marketing, Sales, Communications, and Web to align paid social with integrated campaigns and earned media moments, and bring performance data back upstream to influence creative production and asset strategy. Partner with Web Marketing to align on landing page strategy, message match, and post-click conversion, because paid social performance doesn’t end at the click.

Here’s what we’re looking for

  • 7+ years of performance marketing experience at a B2B SaaS, performance marketing agency, or high-growth consumer organization, with deep expertise in paid social and a track record of testing and scaling new channels.
  • Full-funnel ownership across two or more major paid social platforms (Meta, LinkedIn, Reddit, Quora, TikTok), including deep, hands-on, in-platform execution (campaign builds, audience/targeting strategy, creative testing, bid/budget management), with significant budget responsibility and a track record of driving measurable pipeline impact.
  • Strong creative strategy and testing instincts: you know how to structure a test, distinguish a learning from a result, and translate performance data into creative direction.
  • AI-fluent in practice, not just in theory; you use AI tools consistently in your day-to-day workflow to accelerate briefs, copy, and analysis, and have a track record of implementing AI-driven efficiencies for your team.
  • Excellent cross-functional collaborator who can translate integrated briefs into paid social strategy, advocate for what the channel needs, and work effectively alongside brand, web, and comms partners.
  • You are analytical and data-driven, with a clear point of view on attribution in imperfect measurement environments and comfort communicating paid social’s contribution to business outcomes.

Compensation

The compensation range for this role is $109,000 – $133,000/yr in Denver, and $132,000 – $161,000/yr for San Francisco and New York.

At Gusto, we don’t use titles the traditional way. Titles are meant to represent the scope of your role and your impact, not your seniority. Our titles are leveled to give you a sense of your scope and responsibilities, but they don’t determine your salary, your progression path, or your ability to grow here. Gusto’s compensation philosophy is rooted in our Total Rewards philosophy. Learn more about our Total Rewards philosophy.

Office spaces

Gusto has physical office spaces in Denver, San Francisco, and New York City. Employees who are based in those locations will be expected to work from the office on designated days approximately 2-3 days per week (or more depending on role). The same office expectations apply to all Symmetry roles, Gusto’s subsidiary, whose physical office is in Scottsdale. Note: The San Francisco office expectations encompass both the San Francisco and San Jose metro areas. When approved to work from a location other than a Gusto office, a secure, reliable, and consistent internet connection is required. This includes non-office days for hybrid employees. Reliable, consistent presence: We expect regular and predictable attendance, whether you’re working in-office, hybrid, or fully remote, so that you stay closely connected to your team, customers, and stakeholders in real time and ensure colleagues and customers receive the timely support and responsiveness they deserve.

Gusto is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate in hiring or any employment decision based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, genetic information, veteran status, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or other applicable legally protected characteristic. Gusto considers qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law. Gusto is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures. We want to see our candidates perform to the best of their ability.